Nightingale soars in feat of superhuman agility

By
ADAM PENGILLY

April 20, 2014, 8:18 p.m.

Jason Nightingale has helped rewrite the art of finishing for wingers - and added another party trick with a mid-air try in which he leapt and contorted his body to evade Dane Nielsen's last-ditch block.

Nightingale soars in feat of superhuman agility

Jason Nightingale has helped rewrite the art of finishing for wingers - and added another party trick with a mid-air try in which he leapt and contorted his body to evade Dane Nielsen's last-ditch block.

All the Kiwi international needed was a cape and the big "S" emblazoned across his chest, however he was still happy to defer to Brett Morris's jaw-dropping effort earlier in the season.

"It was a bit unco to be honest," Nightingale said after sprawling across the turf when scoring against the Warriors on Saturday night.

"I probably could have had a better dismount.

"I overdid it and went a little bit too straight on.

"I just had to make sure the ball touched the ground and preferably next time the second thing won't be my head."

It revived memories of Nightingale's similar Superman-style effort against the Sharks last year, but the Kiwi winger said he's still well behind Morris's spectacular score at Remondis Stadium in round three.

"We get competitive in other things, not so much [spectacular tries]," Nightingale said.

"We definitely compete with each other to help improve our own games.

"We're very close and we do a lot of similar things in our own preparation to make sure we're both all right.

"We don't compete in the flash things, but it's great when they come off."

Dragons coach Steve Price lavished praise on his representative back three, with Nightingale, Morris and NSW incumbent Josh Dugan all safe under the high ball and dangerous out of dummy half.

Dugan was on the spot for the match winner after fielding an instinctive kick from Mitch Rein, who himself had scooped up a Michael Witt grubber.

"Our middle are holding their own coming out of trouble and the back three do the job," Price said.

"All the tracking they do off the ball and a couple of those runs when we got bogged down in the back-end of the field later in that second half ... I thought they were tremendous."